Island Hopper: Global warming and Rockin' Ray

Call it global warming, call it the natural pattern of the geological rhythms, heck, call it the seventh sign, if you want. All I know is, this seems to me like the hottest summer I have experienced thus far in my Southwest Florida residency, and I'm facing a daunting challenge: How does one stay daisy-fresh and fashionably appealing when the weather is wilting you like yesterday's arugula?

I've tried the little tricks I read in my InStyle magazine. I wear lighter colors in the hopes they will reflect light and, thus, heat. I'm allowing only natural, breathable fibers against my skin. I'm wearing loose and flowing outfits to allow some welcome breezes to shoot friskily up my legs.

It's not really helping. My skin is glowing — and not in the good way. I'm a curly-headed girl — a fact I would not change for anything. But come a hot, humid Florida summer, I am Rosanne Rosanna-Danna. The strap of my purse has become irrevocably darkened with sweat from my bare, breeze-seeking shoulder.

It's not the worst fashion/weather problem I could have, though. I think back to my years in Manhattan battling a frigid, endless winter: it's even harder to be cute in cold weather, in my opinion — at least if you are a cold-weather sissy like I am. I'd simply pile on the layers until I looked like the Michelin Man, my feet encased in ugly black waterproof boots (and stuck in them all day, unless I remembered to pack a change of footwear in my already laden backpack).

Dress for your 10- to 20-block walk to where you are going in New York and you are instantly a sweaty mess as soon as you step inside a heated building. And you can't leave all those layers in the car so you look halfway decent for your destination, friends — you have no car; it's Manhattan. So you either keep them on or pile them over your arm — a really lovely look for, say, a date.

And did I sacrifice fashion to comfort and wear ear muffs, a 'do-dampening hat, and big oven-mitt gloves? Oh, yes, I did. Pretty? Not even a little. But let the wind whip right down your collar and along your spine once or twice and you'd don a bank-robber ski mask too. Or one of those little hats with the ear flaps — come on, former northerners — admit you've worn them.

So if my biggest fashion challenge is worrying for a few months every year how to keep my flirty pale cotton sun dress from sticking to my torso and showing exactly where I am sweating — well, bring it on, Mother Nature. On the eighth day, God said, "Let there be linen."

Oddly, despite the escalating temps this past weekend, the Snook Inn's outdoor chickee bar stayed surprisingly cool — or at least bearable — courtesy of its ample shade, riverfront breezes, and turbo-charged fans creating a veritable wind tunnel.

Onstage was Rockin' Ray, an entertainer whose public appearances are rare as a lunar eclipse thanks to his full-time job in computers and his mostly private musical engagements. But every now and then he wanders to the Snook or other area venues for a set, and brings his wide play list and his pleasing voice to local stages.

Ray is full-on music machine — a fact I noticed when I walked into a guitar solo during Stray Cat Strut and saw Ray playing only the chords on his acoustic instrument. But as I told the friendly couple next to me at the bar who struck up a conversation, the dynamics of the local music scene have apparently finally worn me down. I concede to the economics of the choice to have a single musician rather than a band, and to the preference of many vacationers for covers as close as possible to the originals. I can stand alone waving my banner of musical purism, or I can bow to supply-and-demand and accept it.

Ray does do some noodling on his guitar, and he adds a nice sound to his tracks — a plangent picking that gives his covers a bit of his own personality.

Mostly he's singing, and his voice is enjoyable and quite versatile, ranging from a low-slung cover of Randy Travis's Forever and Ever, Amen to an airy Just My Imagination not quite as stratospheric as the Temptations,' but up there.

A Rockin' Ray set ranges from reggae (Bob Marley) to rock (CCR, Tom Petty, Santana) to Motown to country to easy listening. He's got a little something for everyone, and he creates a nice background sound and a great atmosphere for a lazy beach-or-boating day at the Snook.

You'll get your obligatory Brown-eyed Girl (which an arriving boatload of young partiers thrilled to, thus affirming its place on local play lists); you'll get your Buffett — though Ray chooses the less hackneyed Boat Drinks to the more overplayed covers.

Mostly you'll get entertaining ambiance, the kind of unobtrusive background music that vacationers seem to adore. And on a hot July day, maybe that's the best way to keep your cool while you sip frozen cocktails and remind yourself that it's the price we pay for not shoveling snow.

---

Drop me a note at tiffanythescribe@msn.com!